Techie grooms in demand
By Bala Shah

The arranged Indian marriage market not only involves checking a boy’s family but also his future career prospects.  After all, most Indian parents still believe that the husband will provide for his wife while she does an every more important role of bringing up children. There is some merit in this viewpoint. Even while some Indian parents espouse these traditional views, many Indian girls and boys are choosing their own partners and living the lives of working couples.

So, when the recession struck, Indian men working in technology, finance and banking were no longer hot prospective grooms. Government servants and doctors were in demand.  In Feb, 2009 Techgoss had even reported how a middle class Indian family had advertised that ‘Software engineers please excuse’ while making a public search for a groom for their doctor daughter.

Looks like Techies are in demand again. National newspaper Mid-Day has spoken to India’s leading matrimonial websites and the verdict is that Techie grooms are back in demand

“
In the last two months, however, enquiries for techies and software professional grooms have shot up, according to matrimonial bureaus across the city.

"Parents of brides-to-be shunned techie professionals because they were considered an unsafe proposition due to the instable job scenario. Families would ask us for other options or think ten times before agreeing to meet them. But since the last two months, they are back in demand," said Manoj Varule of Mangalashtak in Sadashiv Peth.

Shaadi.com used to get more than seven per cent of its national business from IT professionals. The demand for techie grooms is back, but officials still maintain that the golden period hasn't still arrived. "The slowdown had created a few ripples on the matrimonial industry, with demand for IT grooms falling considerably. The demand is slowly reviving, but it is yet to reach the original level. The scene has improved since last year," said Gourav Rakshit, business head, India.
“

(Techgoss had published the following article on Feb 2, 2009)

Matrimony ad: Software engineers please excuse
By John Abraham

Techies getting flustered about pink slips is no longer news; it has been reported by every news media and blog in the world. Recession is here; they know it and expect certain things to happen as the world economy got the jitters last year. But when it comes to marriage, especially the Indian ‘matrimonial market’, software techies did have a special status. No longer

All those girls and boys riding on the software techie-spouse grandeur, flaunting a life-style they had never known before and mamas and papas flying abroad to attend ‘little techies’, has changed the Indian middleclass scenario to a large extent. People who hadn’t even seen the next town now had passports and talked proudly of the UK and the US as if it was next door and they were frequent visitors.

Not any more, it looks like recession has touched here too if what happened recently on a matrimony website is any indication.

It all started with a popular matrimony website ad looking for a groom. This website is among the top 2 matrimony website in India and attracts millions of single men and women.  The girl was educated, good-looking and from a decent background. She even had two well settled siblings of which one was a software techie. The choice of a groom for the girl in the family was elaborately penned. The family wanted a ‘perfect match for her and wanted preferably professionally qualified persons”. But here the pitch changed. The ad went on to say this:

‘Software engineers please excuse’. Period.

The family must have had their own reasons for the choice expressed, it could be that they already had a similar genre person in the family and watching his stress must have decided that the daughter shouldn’t be in such a ‘life’. Or it could be that the girl’s home mentioned in the ad is the locality of one of the Techno parks of God’s own country and the family has been eye witness to the march past of pink slips? Whatever…

Now for the reactions to this perfectly innocuous ad!

Quite obviously, some techies who were browsing for matrimonial matches read this ad and were…well, Shocked? Flustered? Agitated?

And I found this blog, unfortunately in vernacular, which records a hilarious response in typical Mallu satire mood about this particular ad banning s/w engineers from proposing to the girl.

http://shibu1.blogspot.com/2009/02/software-engineers-please-excuse.html

For those who can’t follow Malayalam, here is a short transcript of what he has blogged. I plead guilty to a true Mallu ‘agscent’ in the transcript to keep the flavour in tact. So here goes…

“
Nobody wants IT people. Software Engineers please excuse…

“Money comes today and goes tomorrow” but pride? The value of s/w professionals has declined drastically in the marriage market. S/w workers are not even considered professionally qualifies people, I guess. The time isn’t far when those very s/w engineer who used to walk along flaunting id cards and bearing pompous manners will need to find dark alleys to get to their respective companies. Those software professionals who were the golden catches in the marriage markets are now unwanted specimens. If not, would someone dare to write like this?

“We expect preferably professionally qualified persons. Software engineers please excuse”

Whatever it may be, this is something that is totally to the extreme…aren’t software guys citizens of this country? Will someone tie up an elephant in a cow’s shed? (That last is a Mallu proverb, which says great people remain great even if they fall upon bad fortunes)
“

Then follows an imaginary response mela to the ad from various parts of society! And in the Kerala style too!

The software engineers have come forward en masse against this unfair ad which makes them look third rate people and demanding its withdrawal. The techies of the Info Park at Cochin and Techno Park at Trivandrum have come out in torch-bearing demonstrations. The s/w techies of Techno Park came to work today wearing a black badge and threatened to launch a viral attack on the web site if the ad was not deleted immediately. Tension prevails at various places in the state following this.

There have been several responses to the issue.

The bride’s father: I was looking at the future of my child. Will any one be prepared to marry off one’s daughter to one whose job is like a coconut on the wall? (A classic Mallu comparison using their most popular nut. A coconut on the wall means something that is uncertain as to its outcome…it can be yes or no) In any case, deciding who will marry my daughter is my right.  I used ‘software engineers please excuse’, not to demean them. I just didn’t want them to waste their time applying in vain. My older daughter’s husband is an s/w engineer who is now sitting idle at home, jobless. My son has also been sent out of his job, so he too is at home…I really can’t afford to support another person more. There is no need to make this ad an issue.

The bride: My decisions are the same as my Dad’s. I don’t want what happened to my elder sister to happen to me too.

Info Park Bachelor’s Union Secretary:  We have no objection to the bride’s parents taking a decision on who should marry their daughter. All we object to is the statement “software engineers please excuse”. You could have just avoided responding to the proposals from s/w engineers. Haven’t mechanical engineers lost jobs? Haven’t civil engineers lost jobs? Then why this discrimination to s/w engineers? Compared to the other engineers we haven’t been really affected at all.  They could have said something like ‘Doctors only contact” in the ad. What they have done is something that needs to be protested against.

Techno Park Software Bachelor’s Federation Chairman: This is indeed something to be condemned. We don’t ask you to get the girl married off to a software engineer, but you simply can’t say that software engineers should not approach you! If a guy is eligible, he should be included in the considerations even if he is a software engineer. See how the Supreme Court has ordered that Zoom developers should be included in the Vizhinjam Harbour tender? The court decision doe not say that they should be awarded the tender. Like wise, this ad should be repealed and a new ad including software engineers should be put on at once. Or, there will be strong protests! “

The satire goes on to include responses from the marriage broker’s union, software engineer women’s union, arts college women students’ chairman, ladies club president, a feminist and even the I&B Minister for the state…all with varying attitudes…

Anyway, what followed the blog was even funnier. At the first instance, the words “software engineers please excuse” and the photo of the girl disappeared from the ad. And by now, the ad itself has been withdrawn. The profile is no longer available.

So someone has taken a Mallu satire very seriously! Come on! Get a life!